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Blues player gets back in the groove

Brian Chevalier gets serious again about music and is now on his way to Memphis

By Serena Markstrom

The Register-Guard

Appeared in print: Friday, Dec. 17, 2010, page D2

He got the nickname “Heavy Chevy” as a defensive end in high school football, but Brian Chevalier has resuscitated the moniker for a solo collection of blues tunes.

Luckily for us, the only thing he is knocking out these days are blues tunes, complete with blistering solos on his electric guitar and vulnerable vocal performances.

Some of the songs on “Heavy Chevy” have been around almost as long as Chevalier, 43, has had that nickname. And the whole collection combines for more than an hour of music, which he sells at shows for just $5.

Chevalier released the CD this summer. He recently won the chance to represent the Rainy Day Blues Society at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, a competition that has treated Oregon musicians well in the past couple years: Karen Lovely’s and Ty Curtis’ bands placed second in successive years.

Chevalier moved here in 1994 from Illinois, where he was a solo blues artist playing gigs six nights a week. At the time of the move a close friend — the song “Say Hey” is about him — had died recently in a car accident.

“That was a life-­changing time for me,” Chevalier said. “That was when I realized life is short, and (I) decided I am moving out West. I had friends out here.”

Chevalier’s performance of “Say Hey” during the local competition may have helped him secure the invitation to Memphis. He said he introduced the song with a short version of the story of his friend’s death, and a few notes in he started crying — right there on stage.

“I couldn’t help it,” he said. “It was really embarrassing. You get these waves of emotion and it’s uncontrollable.

“It brought the room to a total whisper. I got through it. Then there was this silence.”

Afterward, the room exploded in applause.

The song is slow burning, instrumentally sparse and lyrically gut-­wrenching. Or, as Chevalier’s father once told him, “I don’t know if I like that song, but I cry every time I hear it.”

“Say Hey” is probably the saddest blues song on the CD. Most of the tracks have a more spunky attitude, such as “Satan’s Girlfriend” and “Do It for the Kids,” which is about staying together despite hating one’s spouse.

There are a handful of instrumental tracks, too.

“The best songs are the ones with the most truth,” Chevalier said. “It sounds so pretentious talking like that, but it’s true.

“There’s a core connection everybody can relate to, if you break the truth down into its simplest form, I think that’s what the best blues is.”

He’s in a Zydeco band, too

Local folks also may know Chevalier from his band Voodoo Mountain Zydeco. And while zydeco has some traits in common with the blues, he thinks of himself primarily as a bluesman.

After an intense year of touring in 1995, Chevalier got a different kind of job that required a lot of travel. He has since been all over the world operating a specialized type of audiovisual equipment.

As a result, his performance career took a back seat until last February, when the company burned to the ground.

In March, he started getting out to the local blues jams.

“I reconnected with the blues scene, and I am really glad I did,” he said. “There are a lot of really great people involved in the blues scene.”

His wife encouraged him to publish songs he had written over the years. He said that within 1½ months of its release, he recouped the costs of making the CD.

“It actually got me through the summer, financially,” he said.

Saturday’s bill — which also features a former winner of the same contest, Al Rivers, and veteran local bluesman Walker T Ryan — is a fundraiser for Chevalier’s “Muddy Road to Memphis,” as the local contest was dubbed.

For this gig, Chevalier will perform in the format he will take to Memphis this February: harmonica, dobro and voice.

“This (audiovisual) thing was the first time I had a job and really be dazzled,” he said. “Big hotels. ... Expense accounts. That was really easy to get sucked into, but the thing about it was it was really lonely.

“Music (has) a continuity in the community. I’m in my early 40s, and for the first time in my life I feel like I am part of a community.